Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity. Even as Ukraine's daring incursion into Russian territory brought the full-scale war back to the headlines around the world, Moscow's forces keep grinding on the eastern front, with dire implications for the entire Donbas region. Though Kyiv's operation achieved an
In an exclusive interview at the Globsec forum in Prague, Kyiv Independent journalist Martin Fornusek spoke to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.
Sitting on NATO's eastern frontier, Lithuania has been punching above its weight when it comes to aiding Ukraine. Ranked among the top military donors in terms of GDP per capita, the country of 2.8 million has provided Ukraine with helicopters, drones, armored vehicles, and air defenses, not to mention
The Kyiv Independent got exclusive access to the POWs captured during the Kursk operation and interviewed them about their motivations and experience of fighting for Russia.
Editor’s note: The transcript of this interview has been edited for clarity. Latvia has been one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters since the start of the all-out war. Sharing a border with both Russia and its ally Belarus, the small Baltic country understands Ukraine’s struggle all too well. As
Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk Oblast in southwestern Russia helped Kyiv to once again change the narrative of Russia’s invincibility in the war, says retired U.S. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. Hodges, who served as commander of the U.S. Army Europe from 2014-2017 and has helped to
Retired U.S. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges analyzes the early success of Ukraine's Kursk incursion and why Russia did not see it coming. But he shares concerns that the West might still fail Ukraine.
Editor's Note: The Kyiv Independent is exclusively re-publishing an interview with Pavlo Smytsnyuk prepared by the Forum for Ukrainian Studies, a research publication for experts, practitioners, and academics to discuss, explore, reflect upon, develop, and transform international understanding of contemporary affairs in Ukraine. This platform is run by the Canadian
The Kyiv Independent’s Francis Farrell spoke with Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower and technology at RUSI, about the evolving dynamics of airspace in Russia's war against Ukraine.
Editor’s note: The transcript of this interview has been edited for clarity. As it entered its second week, Ukraine’s cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast is showing no signs of slowing down. Although the element of surprise that overwhelmed the thin Russian defending force in the first
Just over a week ago, Ukraine launched a surprise counteroffensive across the border into Russia's Kursk Oblast. The Kyiv Independent’s Francis Farrell discusses what might come next for Ukraine with retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan.
The Kyiv Independent's senior news editor Martin Fornusek spoke with defense and aviation expert Peter Layton about what we learned from this footage – how the F-16s are equipped and what could be the strategies and challenges of operating them.
The Kyiv Independent's war reporter Francis Farrell sat down to answer questions from our viewers about Russia's war in Ukraine and his experience of covering it.
The Czech ammunition initiative secured financing for half a million shells for Ukraine and can gather more if it finds additional donors or finances, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said in an interview with the Kyiv Independent on July 23. Czechia unveiled the international initiative earlier this year amid Ukraine's
Ukraine was “a blind spot” for Germans up until Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Franziska Davies, a historian of Eastern and Eastern Central Europe, told the Kyiv Independent in an interview. “And if there is a blind spot, propaganda narratives can easily fill it with falsehoods,” Davies said, explaining why Russia-planted
The recent career of the outgoing Dutch Ambassador, Jennes de Mol, has been a good reflection of his country's relations with Ukraine. A career diplomat, De Mol was the Dutch Consul General in Saint Petersburg in 2014, when he came to Kyiv to assist the Dutch embassy in the aftermath
After a long journey fraught with a global pandemic and all-out invasion, Canada and Ukraine successfully revamped a free trade agreement that comes into play on July 1, expanding the relationship between Canadian and Ukrainian businesses. The Canada Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) was initially introduced in August 2017, abolishing
The Kyiv Independent has obtained footage of Ukrainian authorities questioning a Nepali prisoner of war captured when he was fighting for Russia in Ukraine. The footage was obtained from intelligence sources. The Kyiv Independent edited it for brevity.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, neighboring Slovakia, with its own experience of decades of Russian occupation in the 20th century, became one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine. Under the guidance of then-Defense Minister Jaroslav
Australian Minister Bill Shorten, head of his country’s delegation at the peace summit in Switzerland, says he was surprised by the event. Shorten has been in politics for eight years and was a trade union representative for 15 years before that. He's now the country's National Disability and Insurance
Ukrainians could face up to 20 hours of blackouts a day under a “worst-case” scenario if the country cannot repair and properly defend its energy infrastructure from Russian attacks, Executive Director of Ukraine’s largest privately-owned energy company DTEK Dmytro Sakharuk told the Kyiv Independent in an interview on June
Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction are impossible to separate from the country’s EU integration and accession aspirations. If the country wants to enter the EU, it will have to get its rules and regulations in line with the bloc, across every field. Many of these reforms will involve sectors
Sasha Maslov is a Ukrainian-American photographer who divides his time between Kyiv and New York. At the start of the full-scale invasion, he returned to Kyiv to document the war. His work, which has been showcased in galleries and art spaces across Europe and the United States, includes regular contributions
Laurent Dupuch has weathered not one but two storms over the past few years as CEO and country manager of one of Ukraine’s largest banks Ukrsibbank. He arrived in Ukraine after almost seven years as CEO of the bank’s Morocco operations at the beginning of March 2020, right
Ukrainian author Volodymyr Rafeyenko never thought he would write a novel in Ukrainian. He was a native of Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city where he grew up speaking Russian and completed a degree in Russian philology. Early on in his career, he was the winner of some of Russia’s
TAIPEI – The start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine was a wake-up call for Taiwan, with the island nation believed to be the next conflict zone in case of Kyiv’s defeat. Two years in, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu still believes that the island’s future is dependent
Dmytro Kozatskyi, call sign "Orest," is a Ukrainian soldier who formerly headed the press service of the Azov regiment. In this video, Kozatskyi breaks down his famous photographs and shares his memories about the Russian siege of Mariupol.
Editor's Note: The Kyiv Independent is exclusively re-publishing an interview with Ihor Poshyvailo prepared by the Forum for Ukrainian Studies, a research publication for experts, practitioners, and academics to discuss, explore, reflect upon, develop, and transform international understanding of contemporary affairs in Ukraine. This platform is run by the Canadian
Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine has dealt a devastating blow to the country’s economy. While the country has begun to bounce back from an initial 29% drop in GDP, it’s estimated that at today’s level of growth, the country’s GDP won’t return to pre-war
Local authorities in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast have stopped assessing the damage of Russia’s war. Daily barrages of attacks make doing so both futile and extremely dangerous. Russian forces launch up to 2,500 attacks daily at the embattled region’s towns and villages located along 165 miles
Radosław Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, wants to make it clear he stands for Ukraine's place in the European Union. "It was during the Polish presidency of the EU – with these hands, I pushed and succeeded in closing the text of Ukraine's Association Agreement with the European Union," he emphasized during
To see some of the horrors Russia’s war has brought to Ukraine, one just has to click on the #RussiaIsATerroristState hashtag on social media. Given the scale of Russia’s ongoing attacks, which have left entire cities blacked out and destroyed, and thousands of people killed, the hashtag is
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